Irish Water on standby to deal with Hurricane Ophelia

Irish Water has incident plans in place and crews on standby to deal with the effects of Hurricane Ophelia.

The national water utility recognises that the predicted conditions are likely to result in power outages at critical water and wastewater installations which could compromise service delivery. Heavy rainfall may also increase the risk of flooding.

Power outages may impact the operation of its water treatment plants, which would compromise the safety of drinking water.

Where risk arises, working with the HSE, Irish Water will impose precautionary Boil Water Notices as necessary.

Irish Water is collating information on outages and other issues and will be updating its website constantly during this emergency. The national utility envisage that crews will be unlikely to be able to respond to breakdowns in plants until it is safe to do so and this may lead to a loss of service for a period.

However, Irish Water and local authorities crews will respond as quickly as possible to restore services when it is safe to do so.

Anyone with issues with concerning their water supply should view their service supply map on water.ie, visit twitter at @IWCare or call the utility on 1850 278 278.

The utility would appreciate if members of the public would only call if there is an emergency as there are staff shortages in their call centre in Cork today. If there is a high volume of calls there may be some delay in getting through, which will require the customer’s patience and cooperation.